How it works
From a sealed listing to a paid deal.
Every deal on Fathom follows the same five steps. Prices and identities stay private until both sides have agreed and the buyer has paid.
The deal lifecycle
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List
Sellers post offers and buyers post requests. Each listing is visible only to its owner and to Fathom.
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Match or auction
Fathom runs matching across the whole book, or invites eligible counterparties to an auction.
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Both accept
Each side reviews firm terms against an anonymous counterparty and accepts or declines.
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Deal & payment
A deal is created. The buyer pays the initial invoice: the NRC plus the first month’s MRC.
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Identities revealed
Once paid, the deal is active and each side sees the other’s name, company and country.
Step 1 · List
Describe the capacity in the terms you already use.
A seller’s offer
- Route
- A and Z landing stations, and the cable system that carries it.
- Product
- Wavelength (10G, 100G, 400G or 800G), spectrum in GHz, or whole fiber pairs; number of units.
- Contract
- IRU or lease, term in months, NRC and MRC.
- Availability
- Ready-for-service date; protected or unprotected.
- Reserve
- The lowest rate you’ll accept at auction. Seen only by you and Fathom.
A buyer’s request
- Route
- A and Z landing stations, with flexibility: exact stations, same country, or same region.
- Capacity
- Product and total capacity needed; whether partial fills are acceptable.
- Contract
- IRU, lease or either; acceptable term range in months.
- Timing
- The date the capacity is needed by; whether protection is required.
- Maximum rate
- The most you’ll pay per unit per month. Seen only by you and Fathom.
Every deal is priced as a rate per unit per month — for example $/Gbps/mo, $/GHz/mo or $/pair/mo — so offers with different NRC/MRC structures can be compared on the same footing. A deal’s NRC and MRC keep the proportion of the seller’s offer.
Step 2 · Matching
Scored pair by pair, solved across the book.
Fathom first filters out pairs that can’t work: wrong product, route outside the buyer’s flexibility, incompatible contract type or term, capacity not available in time, protection missing, or an ask above the buyer’s maximum.
Each remaining pair is scored from 0 to 100 on route fit, price, capacity, term and timing. Fathom then chooses the set of matches that is best for the book as a whole — each request is matched at most once, and an offer is never promised more capacity than it has. Where the search can be completed exactly, it is; the operator sees whether a result is proven optimal.
The proposed rate lies between the seller’s ask and the buyer’s maximum (by default, the midpoint). Neither side learns the other’s number from it.
Proposals go to both sides with the full terms — route, capacity, term, rate, NRC, MRC, TCV and ready-for-service date — and an expiry, typically 72 hours. If either side declines, or the capacity is no longer available when both accept, no deal is formed.
Step 2 · Auctions
Price discovery, without a public order book.
Fathom picks the lot and invites only counterparties whose listings are compatible with it. A forward auction sells a seller’s capacity to the highest-bidding buyer, above a hidden reserve. A reverse auction fills a buyer’s request from the lowest-bidding seller, below a hidden ceiling — the buyer’s maximum rate.
| Format | How bidding works | What the winner pays | What bidders see |
|---|---|---|---|
| English (open) | Bids improve on the best by at least the minimum increment. A bid in the final minutes extends the close (soft close, 2 minutes by default). | Their own winning bid. | Best current rate, bid count, their own best bid and whether they lead. Never who else is bidding. |
| Sealed-bid, first-price | One bid each, which can be replaced before the close. | Their own winning bid. | Only their own bid until the result. |
| Sealed-bid, second-price (Vickrey) | One bid each, which can be replaced before the close. | The runner-up’s bid, bounded by the reserve or ceiling. Bidding your true value is the sensible strategy. | Only their own bid until the result. |
Bids that cross a hidden reserve or ceiling are accepted but never win, so the hidden value can’t be found by probing. Ties go to the earliest bid. An auction with no valid winning bid ends with no sale.
Steps 3–5
Accept, pay, then meet your counterparty.
Acceptance
A matched deal needs both sides to accept the proposal. An auction deal forms automatically when the auction is awarded — bidding is the commitment.
Initial invoice
The buyer pays the NRC plus the first month’s MRC through Stripe checkout. Until then the deal is “awaiting payment” and either side may cancel it, which returns the capacity to the book.
Reveal
When payment clears the deal becomes active. Both sides see the counterparty’s name, company and country, and proceed to the capacity contract and provisioning.
Deal desk
Throughout, questions go to Fathom’s deal desk through in-app messages. Participants never message each other before the reveal.
Pricing
3% of total contract value, charged to the seller.
TCV is the deal rate × capacity × term. The commission is due only on completed deals. There are no listing fees, and buyers pay no commission.
| Capacity: 4 × 100G wavelength | 400 Gbps |
|---|---|
| Deal rate | $21.75 /Gbps/mo |
| Term: lease | 36 months |
| Total contract value (TCV) | $313,200 |
| Fathom commission, 3% of TCV | $9,396 |
| Seller’s net over the term | $303,804 |
Visibility
Who sees what, at every step.
| Information | Seller | Buyer | Fathom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own offers or requests | Own offers | Own requests | All |
| Anyone else’s listings | No | No | All |
| Seller’s ask and auction reserve | Own only | No | Yes |
| Buyer’s maximum rate | No | Own only | Yes |
| Proposal terms (route, capacity, term, rate, TCV) | Own proposals | Own proposals | All |
| Counterparty before the deal is paid | Alias, e.g. Buyer B-4MZX | Alias, e.g. Seller S-7KQ2 | Name and company |
| Counterparty once the deal is active | Name, company, country | Name, company, country | Yes |
| Open (English) auction bids | Best rate and count, no identities | Best rate and count, no identities | Every bid, with bidder |
| Sealed auction bids | Own bid only | Own bid only | Every bid, with bidder |
| Fathom’s commission on a deal | Fee and net proceeds | Not shown | Yes |
See it with your own routes.
Tell us which routes and products you trade, and we’ll set you up in the pilot.